June brings tulips, lillies, roses

MUSICAL DISCOVERIES

Jónsi: A bunch of people recommended this album to me, so I just had to check it out.  I was already a casual Sigur Ros fan (I love "Svefn-g-englar" on Vanilla Sky's soundtrack), so making the leap to Jónsi's solo effort seemed like an easy thing to do.  It's a great summer chill-out album, partly because the last few tracks seem like outtakes from the Gladiator soundtrack, in the vein of "Now We Are Free," one of the most beautiful, ehereal pieces of music out there. More please.

Massive Attack: I am not sure why it has taken me so long to realize I like Massive Attack.  They have been around for ages, and I have loved them since the Mission:Impossible soundtrack without even knowing it.  Came across a couple of their albums on the cheap, picked them up, and now can't get enough.  Better late than never!
Plan B: Oddly I first came across this charismatic fellow at the cinema in Harry Brown. The Brit may have previously mentioned something about Plan B in passing, but I didn't pay much attention.  It was one of those UK blips of cultural phenomena that I chose to ignore at just the wrong time, like I did with Russell Brand when I was actually living in England.  Fortunately, MixMag has saved me once again with a top notch Q&A that made me go seek out more info on this multi-talented lad.  His latest disc, The Defamation of Strickland Banks, has a groovy soul influence similar to Jamie Lidell's Jim, which I totally dig.  "Writing's On The Wall" is an especially bittersweet summer tune for sun-drenched afternoons or boozy evenings.  Like Ali Love, my other recent MixMag discovery, Plan B will be one to watch.
Sam Adams: A Boston rapper who bears a passing resemblance to a young Marky Mark (seriously, he looks like he's ready to start the next generation of NKOTB).  I noticed him on the Newbury Comics homepage and couldn't pass up checking out a rapper from Boston named Sam Adams (c'mon people!).  His stuff is kind of an electro hip-hop mash up, and his single "Driving Me Crazy" samples Annie Lennox's "Walking On Broken Glass."  If I were ten years younger, I would seriously be considering this boy for song of the summer.  As it is, my being old and all, he will feature on my playlist as a guilty pleasure.

MINI MIX

"Young Girl" -- Eli "Paperboy" Reed & The True Loves
"Too Much" -- Kylie Minogue (co-written and produced by Calvin Harris)
"Bang Bang Bang" -- Mark Ronson feat. Q-Tip & MDNR
"Writing's On The Wall" -- Plan B

"Tell Me What I Wanna Hear" -- Eli "Paperboy" Reed & The True Loves
"Twistin' the Night Away" -- Sam Cooke
"Aphrodite" -- Kylie Minogue
"Time Machine" -- Example (produced by Calvin Harris)
"Driving Me Crazy" -- Sam Adams

FILMS

Get Him to the Greek
Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work
Holy Rollers
The A-Team
Knight & Day
The Father of My Children 
The Killer Inside Me

NETFLIX QUEUE

Perfume: the Story of  a Murderer

Le Mans

Gun Shy
Get Carter
Mad Men: Season 3
Sudden Impact
The Music Man
Small Town Saturday Night
True Crime

COOKING

Curried yogurt & cucumber dip

Yogurt marinated chicken

Corn, blackeyed pea, cilantro, and grilled pepper salad

Orange cranberry muffins
Grilled steak with spinach and apricot couscous
Grilled chicken sausage with mozzarella and tomato salad

BOOKS

On Chesil Beach, Ian McEwan

A deeply felt character study and love story.  McEwan so accurately captures true-to-life emotions, situations, and human nature.  Even the story's coda rings true in its rapid summation of life's progression.  On Chesil Beach reminded me very much of Atonement, taking many of the themes of that book and boiling them down to their essences for a short but powerful sketch of an all-but-forgotten incident.

A Tidewater Morning, William Styron

I figured that it was high time I read some Styron, after hearing so much about him on the Vineyard.  The beautiful sunrise on the cover led me to expect something very different from the dark, serious, and sober stories within the book.  I often find short stories to be meandering and pointless, but these were well constructed, self-contained, and extremely vivid.  I am a big fan of Styron's vocabulary and careful word choice (he used "phantasmagoria" - one of my top 5 favorite words!).  The WWII story resonated strongly with me, and I am glad that I had seen Flags of Our Fathers to give me more context for the actions and emotions described.

The Stranger, Albert Camus

Speaking of short stories of which I don't get the point, we move on to this novella and the start of my few weeks of Existentialist reading.  I really wish I had taken a philosophy class in college, especially one on Existentialism, because I find the topic and its writings fascinating, but I often feel that I don't fully understand them and am missing something.  One thing I do enjoy about Camus's writing is his wonderful talent for description.  He paints pictures with words.  Not since Patrick Hamilton has an author placed me so firmly alongside his characters in their settings.  So while I feel like there is something in the philosophical message of the story that I am missing, at least I can enjoy the beauty of the prose and the places to which it took me.

The Metamorphosis and Other Stories, Franz Kafka

And again: short stories that don't fully make sense or have a point (at least to me).  However, like Camus, Kafka (and his translator) has a way with words.  In this collection, I greatly enjoyed "The Penal Colony," which was vivid, creepy, disturbing, and wholly absorbing.  The actions that I anticipated were completely turned on their heads, and the story overall presents to the reader a careful consideration of motivation and choice. Even if I didn't fully "get" them, at least Kafka's stories pulled me in and made me think a bit differently.
The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus

Even more so than The Stranger, The Myth of Sisyphus contains many beautifully descriptive sentences and turns of phrase. I underlined or bracketed many passages in this book, many of which are examples of gorgeously poetic prose.  "Summer in Algiers," "The Minotaur," "Helen's Exile"('In a drunken sky, we light up the suns we want.'), and "Return to Tipasa" ('perfect columns in the transparence of the crystalline air.') are especially transportive, but even portions of "Sisyphus," itself a meditation on the somber topic of suicide, have their hooks: 'And if he contemplates anything at all, it is not the ghosts of past loves, but perhaps, through a narrow slit in the sun-baked wall, some silent Spanish plain, a noble, soulless land in which he recognizes himself.'  The essays in this book resonated deeply with me, in great part due to the time I have spent traveling in Europe. Without those experiences, I don't think I would have recognized the strength of the writing in the way that I did.
The 39 Steps, John Buchan

This is a highly enjoyable and follow-able WWI thriller -- much more accessible than le Carré.  After seeing the movie version as a young child (it was part of a book club my mother was involved in; the other film in the series was Green for Danger, which I remember much more vividly), and then seeing the Broadway version earlier this year, I decided it was high time I read the damn book.  While certainly very different from the stage version, the book did not let me down in it's very British sturdiness and sly humor.  As reliable as a good Highland tweed, The 39 Steps is a super quick beach read; I highly recommend it for summer.
Cathedral, Raymond Carver
Another book that I found in a random box at the office, this collection of short stories did a good job of tiding me over between books I actually had planned/wanted to read.  However, while the stories are readable enough, they are not remarkable. Many of them seem dated, lacking the timeless connectivity that other recently read short stories have had.